Wander through the streets of Bulumagi, Uganda, a rural village in East Africa, and pass small huts with women selling cows, goats and clothing.

Every Wednesday on banking day, women crowd around a slightly larger hut, establishing savings accounts and borrowing loans to save for a brighter future.

This microloan project, designed to help Bulumagi women lead financially self-sustaining lives by establishing their own small businesses, is one of many service initiatives implemented through the Partnership Uganda Project (PUP), a non-profit organization established in 2009 by Appalachian State University English professor Tina K. Groover.

After searching online for ways to volunteer internationally, Groover discovered Global Volunteer Network, a volunteer agency which introduced her to the needs of Uganda, one of the poorest countries in the world.

“We were so warmly welcomed in this village and people were so hospitable,” Groover said.   “For people who have so little in a monetary sense to be so generous and welcoming is just always really striking.”

Groover distinctly remembers one Uganda man telling her early on that “Women and children are the future of this community.” 
His message stuck, motivating Groover to direct most of her energy toward supporting women and children through micro-financing loans, health clinics, education sponsorship programs and a small library.

Education for Uganda girls, Groover said, is especially important because it reduces the likelihood of early marriage, multiple teenage pregnancies and sex trafficking.

Partnership Uganda sponsors 40 children to attend school through United States donors at a rate of $50 per year for primary grades (first through seventh) and $120 for secondary grades (eighth through twelfth).

“A lot of microfinance organizations have found that if you invest in women, you’re really investing in the well-being of the whole community,” Groover said. “When women have a small business or when they receive some money, they tend to spend it on feeding their kids, educating their kids, and statistically speaking, that doesn’t happen as much with men.”

This year, in an effort to make a bigger impact in the village, Groover has recruited two Appalachian State University PUP co-coordinators to assist her in raising $15,000 by next summer to construct a community center for the village.

After hearing Groover speak about Partnership Uganda in their nonprofit careers class last year, senior social work major Kelsey S. Thomas and senior public relations major Thomas A. Pierce, approached Groover, asking to help.

“I was specifically interested because it was such a small nonprofit and it was going to be really hands-on,” Thomas said. “What we’re going to do is going to matter a little bit more.”

The PUP co-coordinators are encouraging any club or organization on campus to approach them with creative ways to fundraise for the community center, which will house the children’s’ library, microfinance projects, vocational training, community health education resources and a community clinic.

“We’re not opposed to taking money, but I think we’re more interested in people fundraising for us, to say hey, we’ve had a part of building this community center,” Pierce said.

Uganda villagers will have their own part in the project by making every brick for the center themselves in an onsite kiln.
“We named our organization very consciously,” Groover said. “It’s a partnership, not a handout.”

Thomas and Pierce also hope to sell merchandise such as T-shirts and reusable shopping bags sporting their logo ‘What Uganda do?’  
They are also encouraging local businesses to help sponsor the cost of building one wall, or part of the ceiling or floor. A brick or plaque will be placed in the community center to recognize the sponsoring businesses.

“We really want to make it [PUP] something that lasts at Appalachian,” Thomas said. “This is our project, the community center, but there are so many other things that could be done for another year long project, or a semester project.”

Story: MEGAN NORTHCOTE, Senior Lifestyles Reporter